Chapter 5: The Rule

The door opened before I could take my hand away.

Alpha Ronan stood in it in a pair of gray sleep trousers and nothing else.

The corridor lamp caught the hair on his chest, the long scar under his ribs, and a few drops of water still running down from his collarbone.

I looked at his face and nowhere else, which took real effort.

"I didn't knock," I said.

"I noticed." His voice was thick with sleep. "Your feet are on my threshold, and they're bare."

"I was asleep."

"You were walking."

"I know that now."

He studied me, and I felt the bond pulling at my chest.

"You were dreaming of me," he said. It was not quite a question.

"I was dreaming of a door."

"It was mine."

"Then it's a very ordinary door," I said, "and I don't know why it needs this much attention."

Something tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He reached out slowly and took my wrist, the same one he'd held at the ford, and his thumb pressed into the pulse.

The hum went through me from the crown of my head to my knees.

I stopped breathing.

"There," he said. "You feel that."

"Yes."

"So do I. Every minute since the river."

His thumb moved once across the inside of my wrist.

It wasn't a gentle touch, and it wasn't an accident.

My whole body leaned toward him before I had decided anything.

He took one step into the corridor, and his free hand came up and settled against the side of my neck, under my jaw, warm and calloused.

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